Develop a digital city strategy

Activities related to governance, planning and city management are re-shaped by ICT, which provides a new dimension making it citizen-centric, efficient, accountable and transparent. The way in which many public services, such as outdoor lighting, parking, mobility services, kiosks, location-based services, sensor-based water defences, physical infrastructure monitoring and controls, and smart energy grid services are developed, validated and scaled will change as local governments invest in a smart city strategy.

Tapping into the potential of open innovation

European cities and regions need to move forward and address issues related to smart innovation and the creation of the right framework and space to experiment with more innovation and digital transformation. The mobilisation of all relevant resources could be used to achieve this goal (e.g. EU structural funds, public procurement, Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme).

DigiEspoo: using digital technologies as a driver for public sector innovation

The city of Espoo decided to launch Digi Espoo, a crowd solving tool consisting in bringing real life challenges to the table of developers and SMEs in order to ask them to solve these challenges. The city of Espoo intends to enable policymakers to get a better understanding of the new opportunities driven by the digital revolution through the use of digital solutions to solve their management challenges. This initiative therefore serves to raise the awareness of policy makers on digital technologies. Mindful of this awareness, they will be better equipped to design policies in support of the digital transformation of local businesses.

E-government activities as a driver for digital transformation

Digital breakthrough in the reduction of old asolutions have the capacity to make a nd sub-optimal management styles in the public sector. The online delivery of public services can also serve to accelerate the digital transformation of local businesses. In the region Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur, one out of two SMEs uses e-government services for tax declarations. If the primary purpose of egovernment activities is to improve the efficiency of governments interactions with businesses, these online services also have a demonstration effects for local firms (especially for SMEs). For many companies, e-government activities constitute a model for online service delivery providing companies with new incentives to trust the security of on-line transactions.

Multi-level governance to drive the digitalization of the city of Tallinn

In Tallinn many initiatives have had a significant impact in the development of the digital strategy of the city. At national level, e-Government services are driving the digital transformation process. The e-Residency digital service offers a transnational digital identity to anyone interested in administering a location-independent business online. The national initiative enables secure and convenient digital services and facilitates credibility and trust of online transactions. in 2009 Tallinn implemented a new smartcard ticketing solution, requiring passengers to register their trip using a personal contactless card when entering vehicles.

There is no doubt that the smart city movement is growing by leaps and bounds. The way in which many public services, such as outdoor lighting, parking, mobility services, kiosks, location-based services, sensor-based water defences, physical infrastructure monitoring and controls, and smart energy grid services are developed, validated and scaled will change as local governments invest in a smart city strategy.

Ultimately the digitalisation of the city can serve as a model for companies to also engage their digital transformation strategy. Key technologies used by smart cities to enable digital transformation include:

Key infrastructures in the area of public and private transportation and mobility – Charging infrastructure of electric vehicle (mopedsand cars)

Internet of Things (IoT) to respond to high investment costs to build broadbandnetworks;

Broadband connectivity to tackle challenges related to some IP networks which are not yet IoT ready;

Cloud computing with challenges including security and privacy; complexity of managing cloud components and interoperability betweenclouds and vendor lock-in;

Big data analytics to address a shortage of talent and assure

Trento Smart City

In Trento (Italy), the main obstacle in achieving a digital city vision concerns the inclusion of a wide range of actors, which can be part in different ways of a project of a city that wants to become smart and digital. In this respect, the main aim is not to build peaks of excellence, which the city already owns, but to create a favourable context where all citizens are aware of the role they can play and free to actively collaborate to such a collective plan.

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